


for you, love, i'd rope down the moon

by shizuumi151



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gender Neutral My Unit, Gender Neutral Pronouns, Other, Post Timeskip, spoilers for Golden Deer route, spoilers for claude's backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 11:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20638775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shizuumi151/pseuds/shizuumi151
Summary: For five years, Claude waited for them. Byleth waited for him for nearly one. Yet fate brought them back together, time and time again.They could do battle, play politics, rule a country. For Claude, Byleth would do nigh anything.Kissing his sleeping head, his locks soft on their lips, they want him to know they mean it.





	for you, love, i'd rope down the moon

"You all right, my love?"

"Hm?" Byleth looks up from the minutes from their last council meeting, sniffing. "Yeah. I'm all right."

"You sure?" Claude lowers a brow at them. "Because you've yawned at least three times in the past minute."

Byleth rolls their shoulder, their hum low in response. The papers and requests and policies they have to review are neatly stacked on their desk. Having unified Fòdlan and Almyra under their joint rule, long gone were the days of battle and bloodshed, replaced by the tedium of paperwork and city meetings. Classrooms and war councils replaced with appointments discussing policy and governance. A less exciting, but welcome change, for their days of peace spent in their palace in Derdriu, the new Fòdlan capital.

"Is it anything to do with the trips you've been taking out of town at night?"

Claude himself is working through his own piles of papers for the other side of Fòdlan's Throat across the table. But he opts to scrutinise them the way that gets to Byleth most instead, with his crossed arms and thick, furrowed brow. At his disapproving pout, the finishing move, really, Byleth can only surrender.

"Yes, it is," they sigh. "It's a surprise for you."

"A surprise? For me?"

"That's what I said, no?" Byleth says, smiling at how Claude points to himself cutely.

"But..." He blinks, his frown slow to set. "If it's a surprise, why would you tell me?"

"Because I don't want you to worry," they say matter-of-factly. They reach over to pinch his cheek. "It's a happy occasion, and I'm not about to let you worry yourself sick over it. I'm not about to keep secrets from you, either."

"This... Well, I'd say this changes things, but it kinda doesn't." He ruffles his own hair, thinking. "If you're running yourself ragged or, gods forbid, losing sleep over it? Of course I'm gonna worry, even if it is for me. You're already busy ruling half a continent. I don't want to be a reason you work even harder than you already do."

He takes Byleth's hands into his, concern pinching his features, still. But they expect all of this, and take it with a warm smile. Their thumb brushes the stubble on his jaw when they cup his cheek.

"I appreciate your worry. Really. I'll take better care of myself in return," they promise. They press their forehead to his, gentle as a kiss, and Claude's sigh makes them smile even more. "But it's a gift I'm working on. I only want it to be perfect for you."

"Wooing me like we're not already married." Claude's shoulders shake with mirth, his smile helpless. "Gods know that I can't change your mind if you're set on it."

"And you know that, too."

Claude hums in response. "And I suppose you won't tell me what it is till it comes."

They frown. "I just told you it was a surprise."

"Yeah, but _still_." He nuzzles into Byleth's shoulder. "I wanna _know_."

Laughing, they pet his head. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait.”

"I know," he mutters. His shoulders drop with his sigh. "I suppose I'll just have to sit back and make sure you don't work yourself into an early grave, huh?"

"That's right," they say, placing their hands firm on Claude's shoulders. "And I have to make sure we get our paperwork done sometime this year."

"My love!" Claude's wrist is at his forehead, gasp indignant as they spin him back around to his desk. "Surely, you don't claim I was using my concern for you as a mere diversion from working!"

"Not aloud, but it's nice to hear a confession from you."

Byleth is fully prepared for Claude's antics. It's an echo of his younger self from the academy, without the forced fronts and the fake smiles. His ease is real and true, no need for schemes or roundabout methods for how he wheedles Byleth into just a kiss, and maybe two before they get back to work.

They can count the years it took for Claude to open his heart. The moons Claude spent getting to know theirs. The days they spent now, souls bared fully, in a way that only the other one could have helped make real.

Picking up their quill, Byleth prays to Sothis, wondering if she'll guide them, still.

* * *

"Getting my surprise ready again, are we?"

Their bedside candle flickers, the sole beacon staving off the dark. Claude lays on his side, observing Byleth slinking into bed with a dozed nod.

Their skin runs warm to the touch, like they'll sweat away the wash they had before bed. He shuffles closer to their side anyway, draping an arm over their belly, chin tucking into their shoulder.

"I never asked what the occasion was," he whispers. "For my surprise, I mean."

"No grand occasion," Byleth exhales, eyes closing to the lull of sleep. "I just want to."

When Byleth answers with a hand over the back of his, tired as they are, his lips stretch gently over their skin.

* * *

A week later, Byleth tells him they'll leave early for a trip to the Eastern Church. Establishing it as a reception for travellers passing through Fòdlan's Throat has been a project they've shared with Claude since the beginning of their joint rule.

"I'll be back by tomorrow." At the wyvern stables, they cup Claude's face, kissing the apples of his cheeks. "Don't miss me too much."

"You make it hard not to, my love," he teases.

Claude sees them off with a warm embrace, watching as they soar off towards the sunset, luggage for the night in tow. He gives himself a moment to tend to his white wyvern, Snowy, the growl from her muscled throat emanating in a warm purr by the strokes he gives behind her horns.

"Just what is the love of my life up to..." Scritching the underside of Snowy's chin, he lets out a sigh. "Playing with wyverns and thinking about Byleth. Not much has changed from Almyra, has it, Snowy?"

A gurgle ripples from Snowy's maw, playful and content. Claude coos at her with a loving smile and a starfish hug, excited for what the future and Byleth have in store for him.

* * *

The next day, Claude receives a note from his waitstaff.

When he reads it alone in his quarters, he startles seeing it's from Byleth.

"The surprise..."

Breathing out the words, his excitement seeps into his eyes, his delight into his grin when he unfolds it. In neat, rounded letters, Byleth writes him only two lines.

> Claude von Riegan, I would move mountains for you.  
Find me at Fòdlan's Throat.

* * *

Two moons before he receives his note, Claude lies at Byleth's bedside, pensive.

“My love, I don’t think I ever apologised properly.”

Byleth is lying on their side, gazing into Claude’s eyes when he mumbles, glancing at their lips. Their bed is warm and the night cool. Tangling their legs with his broad ones, the coarse hairs tickling their fair skin, his hand cards through their hair like they’re porcelain. There’s nowhere in the world Byleth would rather be.

“What do you mean?”

They murmur as quiet as their husband. Careful not to upset the peace of the evening, before the day goes to slumber with them.

“You know... Back when I first met you, and you could wield the Sword of the Creator." He traces a finger along the hard bone of Byleth’s clavicle, their arm slotted through the crook where his neck arches from his pillow. "I just wanted to use you back then. It was on my mind for days. Moons, even.”

His lips are smooth against their forehead when he kisses it, his arm warm and his grip firm when he pulls them in an embrace.

“I was pretty full of myself back then. And pretty selfish, to boot, what with the me-first attitude I armed myself with. I... It was short-sighted of me.” Tucking in his head, he nuzzles Byleth’s neck, like a needy puppy. “I hope you forgive me.”

“Claude," Byleth sighs. "You’ve done nothing you need to apologise for.”

"Really? I mean, I'd think asking for your father's diary barely days after his passing was a pretty terrible thing to do," he says, scoffing at himself. "I couldn't even wait for you to feel better. What kind of person does that?"

"Darling. I know you meant no harm. All you wanted to do was find out the truth, like I did." Kissing the top of his head, they stroke down his shoulder and back, when he snuggles into their side more. “I don't consider that as you wronging me. Even if you have and I've forgotten, surely everything we’ve gone through makes up for it.”

“I suppose,” he admits. “I didn’t want to leave it unsaid, though.”

He peeks up at Byleth, eyes gleaming like jade, doe-like in the moon's glow. Byleth’s heart threatens to melt in their chest.

“Love you, Byleth,” he says. Soft and tender, and Byleth is helpless to the smile that takes over their face, when they kiss his forehead.

“I love you too.”

* * *

In the moments after receiving Byleth's note, later recounts would describe Claude in his rush as a man possessed. Tripping over his own boots, he shouts for any meetings or visits to be postponed for the day, barely managing to change out of his loungewear as he races for the stables. Judith would surely smack him upside the head, if she wouldn't be too busy laughing with Nader at his desperation.

Not an hour later, he's flying true for Fòdlan's Throat, Snowy's body rolling like an ocean churning in a storm beneath his saddle where her wings whip the streaming winds.

"Thank gods it's calm out today..."

He leans into Snowy's long neck, rubbing behind her horns with fervour. A feast and a half awaits her when she snorts and gains speed, sending the wind whistling in Claude's ears. The light of sunset cuts sharp across the heavens, aching his eyes. But even as he shields them and squints, he won't turn away for one second.

"Byleth... You must be insane." His laugh of wonder is lost in the gale. "Or you'll drive me insane, if this is what I think it is."

* * *

Sleep escapes Byleth after hearing his apology.

Basking in the sight of Claude sleeping by their side, they turn their gaze to the ceiling.

The conversation from before gnaws at them. It replays in a reel in their head, and the feeling they've forgotten something is a keen one.

Claude mentioned the diary, but Byleth really didn't mind then or now. Having read over it themselves, it felt reassuring, in a way, that Claude took so much interest in it. That his sharp eyes would glean things they had missed. Like it offered a real way Jeralt could guide them, even though he was gone.

It wasn't about the diary. But Claude mentioned the Sword of the Creator, and that part sticks with Byleth. It occurs to them that they never found out why Claude wanted it so desperately.

_Perhaps he did,_ Byleth thinks, glancing at him tossing once in his sleep. _Just in a roundabout way._

They cast their mind back to their academy days. To when Claude talked their ear off, and specifically the times when it was about the Relic of legend.

_Remember when I said there was a Relic that could cut a mountain in half? I was talking about the Sword of the Creator..._

It hits them, suddenly. Like Byleth has a dormant third eye to open. Which wouldn't be out of place with their stillborn heart, where the shock reaches them.

"I thought you were joking..."

They mumble the words, gazing upon Claude's sleeping face. Innocent. At utter peace.

They remember him confessing he used to have trouble falling asleep, both at home and at the academy. From alert nerves from past attacks to ceaseless thoughts from mythological secrets, he was a light sleeper whether he liked it or not. But here and now, on their bed, he sleeps so deeply his breath takes on an edge of a snore. Byleth's heart aches with their smile for that.

For five years, Claude waited for them. Byleth waited for him for nearly one. Yet fate brought them back together, time and time again.

They could do battle, play politics, rule a country. For Claude, Byleth would do nigh anything.

Kissing his sleeping head, his locks soft on their lips, they want him to know they mean it.

* * *

If Claude had any amount of Ignatz's painterly skill, he could replicate the damned mountain range that separated his homes with his eyes closed. The mountaintops serrated like a beartrap, a tear in the landscape that ripped open the sky to swallow the sun.

Yet for all his dislike, he knows the majesty of the bane well. Making frequent passage through and over it on his wyverns to and from Almyra, Claude knows he didn't take a wrong turn, flying for Fòdlan's Throat.

He knows. And yet...

Though his resentment for the Throat simmered with age, once in a dream, he longed to see those dead mountains vanish overnight. Like a trick of the light, the most impressive and insidious Claude could think of anyone to conjure.

He wonders if he's dreaming, still, when one of the mountains is missing. Like in a row of crooked dentures, a loose milk tooth.

Claude can't form the words because his jaw goes slack, shaking. His eyes swim in his head, and he learns to breathe.

"...It can't be -- " Suddenly, a gasp rattles his chest like a storm. "Oh gods, _Byleth!_"

He kicks Snowy's sides once, forcing his lash so she streaks down in a nosedive. At the foot of the ruined mountain lie debris and rubble, piled and powdered like ash at a dead hearth. When he can't spot Byleth amongst the ruins, Claude panics, sweat beading cold on his brow.

* * *

Byleth's blood burned from their sword hand, hacking away at rock. Even as the lockchains of the Sword of the Creator's blade sliced through the mountain like cutting through water, they could feel their Crest pulsing with power they hadn't wielded in years.

After blinking through sweat and breathing past sand, arms fallen limp at a downed mountain by their hands, they decided a short rest was in order.

Hiking up to the tree where they left Tallulah, obediently sat and waiting, they let their body rest in a heap by the trunk. A ragdoll finally finding relief when they laid on the grassy hillside, sighing. At her worried nudge, nose leathered and snort warm on their cheek, they mustered a tired laugh. A mutter of Claude's name and a request to find him when he comes.

With a gust of wind from her wings, Byleth let themselves relax. Bones and sore muscles melting into the earth, warmed by the new passage they cut for the sun's rays, they fall into a soft slumber.

* * *

A shriek pierces the evening. Claude whirls upon the sound, seeing Byleth's wyvern flying to them. His heart bursts up into his throat.

"Tallulah!"

He stays Snowy with a pull that comes from all his chest. There's nothing but delight on her face having found them, and Claude's fears ebb with a shaky smile.

"Atta girl for finding us," he says, laughing when she nuzzles up to him. "Where is that crazy, wonderful love of mine, lovely 'Lulah? Mind showing us the way?"

Claude pets her horns and feeding her chops of bear from Snowy's satchel, relief washing warm over him the further they fly at Tallulah's lead. When he sees Byleth sleeping by a tree, the Sword of the Creator not even sheathed as they nap like a baby cast aglow by the sunset, Claude can only smile landing Snowy and Tallulah by their side.

"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, y'know."

Byleth doesn't rouse from their nap. Sure enough their breath flows calm and steady. If Claude peers close enough, he can spy the start of bags under their eyes, from the sleepless nights they spent doing gods know what to prepare for their surprise for him.

"Not even awake to see my reaction... But I don't know anyone who needs more of a break than you right now."

He chuckles while dismounting Snowy. Patting her back and letting her play with Tallulah on the side, he treads to sit by Byleth's side away from their Sword. Before he lies next to them in an afternoon nap, he looks again to the hole in Fòdlan's Throat. Thinking back to the piles of papers and sleepless nights Byleth slaved through, all for this. All for him.

He clasps Byleth's hand, and looks down to their fingers. Wedding bands glinting in the light as he laces them together. His gaze sweeps Byleth's sleeping figure like a blanket. His joy and love and gratitude and all the unspeakable emotions in-between, he can't contain when it bubbles forth in a sigh that runs to his very core.

He hears the grass shift, Byleth's moan when they stir. He strokes their hair while they mumble, his smile soft as silk.

"Claude." Eyes refocusing on him, they flit between half-open and shut when they smile back. "Do you like it?"

"Like it?" he scoffs, teeth gleaming with his grin. "You just made your anniversary gift a _very_ tall order." He lays down more fully next to them, drinking in their adorable, dozy relief. "This is one for the history books again, my love," he murmurs, drunk on affection when he traces their cheek. "Who knew you would move mountains for me?"

"I did. And so do you now, too." They try to sit up, looking at the horizon. "What hour is it? I meet with Seteth in the evening -- "

"Hey, it's okay. I postponed all our commitments, just for the night," he promises, voice thick and warm like a quilt. "Rest a little longer. You deserve it."

Byleth blinks slow at the words. But they only slink back to rest in the nook of Claude's side. Head resting on his shoulder, cradling into his warmth as their breaths even out longer and deeper.

"Will you lay with me?" they ask, even after they hug him captive. Claude only laughs softly at that.

"For you, love?" His lips press flush against their crown as they sleep in his embrace, as the sun stays aloft longer by Fòdlan's newly opened Throat. "I'll do anything."

**Author's Note:**

> another claudeleth/bylaude idea i had! this came more suddenly than the others, when i replayed the GD route and realised that what claude said about the sword of the creator was probably pretty literal! i just wanted to cobble together an idea of if byleth had remembered and taken his request seriously
> 
> hoped you liked the read!
> 
> [tumbly link](https://shizuumi151.tumblr.com/post/187711452525/fic-for-you-love-id-rope-down-the-moon)  
[twitty link](https://twitter.com/shizuumi151/status/1172907809609940993?s=20)


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